


On His Mind

by KatyaMorrigan



Category: Six of Crows Series - Leigh Bardugo
Genre: Dreams, F/M, Kaz yearning, Letters, Long-Distance, Post-Canon, pirate inej
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-26
Updated: 2020-11-26
Packaged: 2021-03-10 05:08:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,479
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27727903
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KatyaMorrigan/pseuds/KatyaMorrigan
Summary: How does one reconcile the knowledge that the very thing you want close to you is the thing you have just let go of?Inej is the captain of The Wraith, no longer tied to Ketterdam or to Kaz. And as much as he wants her to be there with him, he knows that it must be her choice. Unfortunately his subconscious won't let the matter rest, and a series of dreams is what finally convinces him to make clear his feelings and allow her a new choice, this time in the full knowledge of what she leaves behind every time she sets sail.
Relationships: Kaz Brekker/Inej Ghafa
Comments: 6
Kudos: 39





	On His Mind

**Author's Note:**

> Day 26 of my NaNoWriMo writing challenge this year - one oneshot a day, every day for the whole of November. I'm following the SOFTober 2020 prompts by @wafflesandkruge on Instagram to give me some fluffy starting points for the coming month of fics.  
> The prompt for today was "dreams".  
> I hope you enjoy!

Kaz knew what he was doing when he gifted Inej _The Wraith_. It was a way to make her dreams come true, to allow her the pursuit of something good to its core rather than biding her time in Ketterdam committing petty crimes for the benefit of the gang. True, she had learned that good things did not have to be achieved in the most moral of ways, but it was a waste of her talents to stay in a city that thrived on violence for violence’s sake.

From the reports that came into the city, a large vessel had been seen as far away as the Bone Road and as nearby as Shu Han, terrorising slaver ships and setting them on fire to send the clearest message. Other reports claimed that the slavers themselves had been left onboard to burn or drown, and even more said that the financial cargo on board was seized along with the slaves. What happened to them afterwards, the messengers did not know.

Kaz Brekker knew. A couple that he was acquainted with who lived on the Fjerda/Ravka border often wrote to him, telling him of the people they met when _The Wraith_ docked nearby, releasing those who had been stolen from their homeland back to where they had come from along with any resources and money that had been taken along with them. It was a relief to hear of the work that Inej was doing, especially coming from Nina and Matthias, but it didn’t make the months in which he did not see his girl any easier.

She wasn’t truly his, he knew that. Kaz had made that certain when he had bought her a boat to ensure she was never tied to his side for any reason. Inej had the ability to go anywhere, do anything now, and she was. She was making a fine name for herself as someone to fear if you were involved in people-trafficking. What a way to be remembered. And yet still Kaz felt that selfish longing in his chest for her to stay put, to be here in Ketterdam and never set sail again. Wasn’t this what he had wanted? To set her free, to make sure she only saw him because she wanted to? That was a part of it, at least. In letting Inej go, he had severed all responsibility for their closeness. If she returned to Ketterdam, it was her own prerogative. No more would Kaz keep her where she didn’t most want to be.

The most confusing part was that Inej did return. She dropped into Ketterdam most months, with a handful of slaves to give back to the city and some fantastic tales of the men she had deposed in the passing weeks. Inej most often stayed at the Van Eck mansion with Wylan and Jesper, but a few nights she would stay in the Slat. Kaz felt like the weight of the building was holding him down on those nights. He could practically feel her body in the bed three floors below his, feel it pulling down on the roof. She was like a black hole – beautiful and ever pulling on his attention. There was nowhere to go but towards her.

Kaz tried to tell himself it was just for business. Inej was free to do as she pleased, and she only came back when there was reason to. But there were things that weren’t business-related that she spent her time on in those few days in the city. Evenings playing cards and talking with the other members of the Crows. Offers to take on more work for the Crows if it was going. Lingering in his office before work, after work, during lunch hours and whenever he had particularly nasty paperwork to get through. She was always there, by his arm, talking to him like she enjoyed his company. Kaz wasn’t stupid enough to claim that Inej didn’t like him, but her choice had been clear. Her priority was the sea.

It didn’t stop him dreaming, though. After another visit, she said goodbye to him the night before she was due to sail. They had been in his office, Kaz sat reading documents while she perched on the edge of the desk, shining her boots and mending the coat she wore out on deck. It was a thing of great power, creating a rigid masculine silhouette around her slim body that projected the image of Inej Ghada, slaver hunter. Kaz found himself watching her neat fingers as they pulled the thread through the leather shoulder pieces, fixing them back into place. But when she finished, she didn’t leave. Inej stayed beside him, looking out at the stars as they faded into view from the window.

“How many years of pirating before I have to give it up?” she said quietly. He looked up, and saw her pensive expression.

“Pirates don’t give up,” he remarked. “They tend to either be murdered in action or go down with their vessel.”

“I certainly haven’t met many retired captains,” Inej smiled. She sighed. “I don’t know how long I can be rootless, though.”

Kaz said nothing. There was no response for that kind of sentiment.

“I need a place to belong,” she mused. “Somewhere I know I can be settled. The sea is wonderful, but I don’t know for how long it will be enough.”

“I thought that this was what you wanted,” Kaz said, and it was true. Why was she second-guessing the work that she was doing?

“I can want two things.” Inej smiled. “Surely you can understand that.”

Kaz felt that longing in him, to see her free to choose him if it was what she wanted, and also to selfishly keep her here and make sure he was her choice.

“I do.”

There had been little conversation after that before Inej departed for the docks, to get used to the swing of her below-deck hammock again before another few weeks at sea. Kaz put away his work, too restless now to continue.

He went to Berth 22 very early in the morning, knowing that _The Wraith_ would be sailing soon. Even with his waistcoat and a thick charcoal-coloured overcoat, the damp fog of the harbour was making his leg complain. Inej waved to him from the deck just as the ropes were hauled in by her crewmates, and he raised a hand in salute. Her laugh caught on the wind, and Kaz savoured that last sound before the months of silence.

And that night, he dreamed of her. She was there, in his office, telling him why she couldn’t choose Ketterdam – and him – over a life of saving the innocent. But as dreams often do, her reasoning was twisted on itself, torturously linked to his own self-esteem and his fears.

 _“You don’t care for anyone,”_ she said, _“least of all me. How can I stay in a place where I am no valued?”_

 _“I care for you,”_ he tried to say, but Inej pushed him aside.

_“You can’t even touch me. How can you care for me? I need someone to take care of me without a distance between us. And I certainly don’t need you.”_

He woke up with a sick feeling in his stomach, an ache that made him even more unpleasant to deal with for the rest of the day. Fortunately the Crows were wary enough of Kaz Brekker, and it was easy to lock himself in his office again, going through finances and cursing at himself with every stray thought to the dream and to Inej.

The dream was all wrong. Inej didn’t need to be taken care of. She was strong enough to sail alone with a crew bent on destroying the largest market across the continents. There was no part of her that relied on another person, least of all him. At least the dream had gotten that part right.

But then that night he dreamed of her again, and that sick self-loathing was twisted again, now into the very picture of what he wanted most. She was with him, in his office, sat across from him as they had been that final night before departure. Kaz reached for her hand, and she took it with a smile. He wasn’t wearing gloves. There was no pang of trauma that came with the touch, just the warm of her hand and the swell of her eyes as she looked at him. Kaz stood up and put his arms around her, and she leaned into his embrace with a sigh. Inej lifted her head from his chest to look up at him, and he knew that she wanted to kiss him. Kaz leaned down and pressed his lips to hers, and it was perfect. They could kiss without revulsion, with his hands on her face and in her hair, hers wrapped around his neck and with a small sigh falling from her mouth.

 _“I love you,”_ Inej murmured against his lips, but as Kaz tried to say the words back, his mind caught too quickly on the intent of the dream and pushed him into waking.

And Kaz was alone, in his bed too large for one man, staring at a badly painted ceiling with an empty space in his mind.

He worked harder than ever that day, calling in new reports and sending his new spider out to follow up suggestions of potential ventures. Nobody rested that day, least of all Kaz, as he flew through the paperwork and then requested more figures from the Dregs so that he could compare expenses. All of this, just to keep his mind from lovely Inej in his arms, more real than life, kissing him and saying she loved him in some fantasy that couldn’t be real.

A week later and the dream repeated, but as he reached for her hand, she snatched it away.

_“You know we can’t. Men terrify me, and bodies terrify you. I wish we could touch, but it’s too much for both of us. I can’t hurt you like that.”_

_“You won’t hurt me,”_ he promised, taking her hand, but then that chill slid up his spine and he was clinging to a corpse for dear life, wet skin on his arms and face, and Kaz was retching drily into his pillow when he woke up.

Kaz took the day off work. He walked down to the harbour and looked out to sea, watching the grey waves crest far offshore. The salty air made his hair stiff and shiny by the end of the day, but Kaz didn’t much care. Inej was so far from him, and yet he couldn’t get her out of his head. That was the true curse, he supposed. In letting her go, he hadn’t ridden himself of that need to be with her. Instead of occupying himself with work and being Kaz Brekker, the Bastard of the Barrel, he had leaned into it, let himself be the pathetic podge who wished his girl was with him even though he had been the one to allow her a way out. What a joke.

And that night, a dream came in which she was with him, so far from real life that he barely remembered it upon waking. All he remembered was one brief snapshot in which she had smiled at him. Maybe it had been a memory from some time when she was here, or maybe it was just his stupid brain fixating yet again on the one thing he was desperate to see.

Another night, another dream. Abstract this time, with himself and Inej suspended in the air. Every time Kaz tried to reach her, she would be pushed further away. No matter how hard he tried to swim closer, to be within reaching distance, every move of his arms made her spin into the distance, a planet without an orbit. But when he stilled, Kaz realised that she would come closer, ever so slowly, tumbling through the air like an acrobat. Like the girl she was before she had been forced to live in Ketterdam. She came towards him, and reached out a hand. Kaz restrained himself from reaching back, knowing that his movement would make her spiral ever further again. But when Inej gave him a reassuring smile, he lifted his hand, and watched as their fingers interlocked. Inej pulled him into her arms and rested her forehead against his. She was here. She had come back to him. And she wasn’t letting go, no matter where they drifted.

Kaz woke up feeling placid for the first time in many weeks. He conducted himself normally, his thoughts free from Inej’s grasp. Work was as usual, except that as he processed the new documents brought to him by spiders and messengers alike, there was a letter buried in the pile. A letter from her. Inej was coming back, and would be at Berth 22 in two days from now. She was coming back.

He didn’t dare stop working, didn’t dare let his thoughts stray to her again. More dreams about her, kind and loving, able to touch her without that repulsive reaction or disagreements between them. Kaz hardly knew how to react. Inej would be back in Ketterdam again much sooner than he had ever dared hope for her to be, and all he could think about was their last conversation, about how she needed roots and a place to belong, and that the sea couldn’t fulfil that need. What could Kaz do? What could he possibly offer to her while she was so wild and free, so in love with the life she had built for herself?

And of course his mind went to the dream. The way she fled further the more he reached for her, the way she only began to reach once she was almost out of sight. The way she had smiled at him with so much confidence before intertwining their hands and bodies.

Kaz didn’t believe in spirituality, in the meaning of dreams. But that prompt was enough for him to make a decision. Inej couldn’t miss what she didn’t know truly existed. She couldn’t want to be with him unless he made his affections clear. Ketterdam couldn’t be her home until there was somewhere for her to put down roots, someone to help her grow. Someone that he wanted to be for her.

So when her boat arrived in the early evening, Kaz was there. He wore gloves, but his hands were restless on the top of his cane. She appeared at the side of the deck, windswept and tired-looking, and smiled at the sight of him. Inej prepared the gangplank for disembarkment, throwing down the guide ropes for the harbour men to catch and tie onto the berth. The rest of the crew and the freed slaves were allowed off first, all heading to the nearby lodging or taverns conveniently built on Fifth Harbour to cater to those crowds. Then Inej stepped off the ship, pushing her hair away from her face and smiling at Kaz as she reached him.

“It’s good to see you again,” he said, offering her his arm. Inej looked at him in surprise, her gaze swapping from his outstretched hand and his eyes.

“It’s good to be back,” she replied, settling for hooking her arm through his and walking with him back to the Slat.

She talked politely about the travels, about the slaving ship she had encountered just off the coast of Ravka with Suli girls that reminded her so much of herself stowed below the deck. Kaz listened intently as she elaborated on the skirmish that followed, resulting in her rescuing of all but one of the girls who unfortunately perished from malnourishment on the journey back, and who would be given a sailor’s funeral in a few days. They reached Kaz’s office, and he unlocked the door to take them both inside.

“I didn’t expect you to be back in Ketterdam so soon,” Kaz remarked, lighting the oil lamps as Inej stretched out in his leather desk chair. “Excuse me.”

He frowned at her as she swung her legs over the arm and reclined exaggeratedly, laughing at his expression before moving to perch on the end of his desk like usual.

“I didn’t expect to be here again either,” Inej admitted. “But as I said to you last time we were in this room, the sea doesn’t seem to be the place for me. I find myself looking to dock in new harbours more frequently than I did before. Or more accurately, to be back at Berth 22. To be in Ketterdam again.”

This was it. He had to say it.

“I have thought a lot about what you said last time,” Kaz began. “It confused me initially. How could you want something so parallel to what it is you have now? But then you said that one could want two things at the same time, and it hit me. I understand completely.”

Kaz took a deep breath and looked at Inej. Her gaze was dark and intense, but her eyebrows expressed only interest in what he had to say. He could do it.

“I want you to be free to make your own choices, but at the same time, I want to be a part of those choices. I want you to have no ties to me or to Ketterdam unless they are truly what you want, and I want you to want that.”

She was looking confused. Kaz sighed.

“I miss you terribly when you aren’t here,” he admitted. “I dreamt of you most nights that you were gone. And I cannot be so selfish as to ask you to stay here purely so that I don’t miss you. But I want you to know that I feel that way about you, so that you might at least consider my feelings when you begin to think about places to put down roots. I want… I want to be here with you, but only because it’s what you most want.”

Kaz looked at her, and saw that she was smiling. There was a watery sparkle to her eyes, and she reached forwards to lay her hand on top of his gloved one.

“Why do you think I come back _here?”_ she asked. “It’s because I want to see you. To see Jesper and Wylan too, of course, and to be back in the place I know the best other than my hometown. But it’s because of you, Kaz.”

“I, I thought—”

“You’re always so scared to say how you feel,” Inej smiled. “But you forget that I can see it. I think of you too when I am out at sea. I dream of you too.”

Kaz felt an unwelcome blush creep up his face.

“There is no part of me that doesn’t consider our equal desire to be with each other,” Inej concluded. “You want to hide it because you are terrified of forcing me to be grounded in the way I was before, but your desire to keep me here isn’t malicious. It’s…”

She trailed off, gesturing vaguely.

“It’s care. You care about me. That cannot ground me in the way you are scared of doing. And I’m here again now.”

“You are,” Kaz breathed.

“I can’t promise I won’t leave again,” she said, “but that I won’t be gone for so long each time. And I will write to you. We don’t have to withhold all possibilities while I am a captain.”

This was all he wanted. That promise that she would come back, that she would be with him while she was in Ketterdam – that she cared in the same way that he did.

“Those dreams forced me to confront a lot of feelings,” he confessed, rubbing the back of his head with a sheepish grimace. Inej smiled back.

“Then I’m glad I found my way into your dreams,” she said. Inej squeezed his hand gently, and Kaz squeezed back. “I’m not leaving Ketterdam for two weeks now.”

“So long as you’re sure,” Kaz found himself saying, ignoring their conversation. She gave him an amused look.

“Do you doubt that I know my own mind?”

“Not at all.”

“Then trust me when I say that I want to be here, and I want to be with you.”

Inej tucked her fingers into his, in that same intimate interlocking that had occurred in his dream. Kaz smiled one of his rare smiles at her. This was far better than any fantasy that his mind could conjure, and for the first time in a long while, he didn’t have to sleep to have Inej at his side again. And that was enough for now.

**Author's Note:**

> Ehhh, this one felt messy to me. Definitely another of the stories I'll rewrite at a later date, as I like the idea, I just think I paced and plotted it clumsily. At this point I have so many iterations of Kaz and Inej in my head, at different points in their relationship, and it's a struggle. Of all the struggles to have tho, too much Kanej is one I'm willing to have lol.
> 
> Tomorrow's prompt is "hug", and will be a Lore Olympus Persephone/Hades fic.


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